Navras by Navras

Navras is the aesthetic experience (not the emotional experience itself) of the nine basic emotions or tastes (rasas), viz., sensitive (perception of love, shringar), comic (hasya), heroic (veer), furious (raudra), apprehensive (vibhatsa), compassionate (karuna), horrific (bhayanak), marvelous (adbhut), and calmed (shaant).

The earliest mention of Navras is found in the Natyashastra, which has been variously dated from the second century A.D. This work is in many respects a manual for the producer of stage plays and deals with all aspects of drama, including dance and music. Much of the present-day musical terminology stems from the Natyashastra, a source of inspiration for many treatises over the centuries. The drama is, according to the Natyashastra, an imitation of all the actions of the world, the essential part being the emotions (bhavas) which the characters are represented as experiencing during their actions.

In the sixteenth century, we find Navras in verse, in the Sultan of Bijapur, Ibrahim Adil Shah II’s (AD 1580-1627) remarkable collection of fifty-nine Dakkhini songs, Kitab-i-Navras. Songs contained in it are dedicated to Hindu gods and goddesses, and are preceded by an indication of the ragas and raginis in which they should be sung. There are also songs dedicated to the Prophet Muhammad, Hazrat Banda Nawaz, the sufi saint from Gulbarga, and other Muslim saints. According to his court-poet Zuhuri, he wrote it to introduce the theory of nine rasas, which occupies the most important place in Indian aesthetics, to those who were familiar only with Persian ethos. Sultan Ibrahim Adil Shah II even founded a township called Navraspur to give concrete shape to his musical conception or idea of a musical city. The town was meant only for artists, painters, sculptors, musicians, singers, actors, poets, artisans, craftsmen, and people of other creative pursuits.

Navras soor juga sarogunuiyu Saraswati mata
Ibrahim para sada bhayi dooni

(“Oh mother Saraswati! Since you have blessed Ibrahim,
His work Navras will last for long.”)